CHICAGO - Penn State is heading into 2026 as one of the Big Ten’s biggest question marks, and this week’s Big Ten Media Days will offer the first real look at just how strange this reset has become.
New head coach Matt Campbell is bringing a heavily rebuilt Nittany Lions team to Chicago on Tuesday, July 28, with quarterback Rocco Becht, linebacker Tony Rojas and offensive lineman Anthony Donkoh set to join him. The conversation around Penn State this summer starts with the overhaul: a roster of more than 100 players that is split almost right down the middle between newcomers and returners.
That kind of turnover would be hard enough on its own. It gets even messier when you factor in the season Penn State just lived through - a team that entered 2025 with national title expectations, then dropped six straight games before eventually settling back in late. Now the Lions are trying to piece together a new identity under Campbell, and they’ll do it without facing three College Football Playoff powers this fall in Ohio State, Oregon and national champion Indiana.
Even with that break in the schedule, the preseason picture is murky. In the annual USA TODAY Network poll of college football writers, Penn State landed sixth in the Big Ten, behind Michigan and ahead of Washington, and outside the CFP conversation. The Lions also drew no all-conference offensive or defensive selections, though Becht has been consistently described as college football’s most experienced returning quarterback.
The transfer-heavy makeup is part of what makes this team so hard to pin down. Campbell has to blend 40 transfers - including 24 from Iowa State - with 52 returners of different ages and experience levels. That challenge will shape everything about the season.
The only Penn State players to receive honorable mention from USA TODAY were former Cyclone linebacker Caleb Bacon and safety Marcus Neal, Jr.
The uncertainty shows up in another preseason gauge, too. In the Cleveland.com poll, Penn State again checked in at sixth, but the votes ranged from fourth to 11th - a spread that says plenty about how little consensus exists around this roster.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly summed up the puzzle in June: "Penn State is seemingly impossible to project, especially since the Nittany Lions will be more Iowa State than PSU this season under new coach Matt Campbell," he wrote. "They could indeed be a borderline top-15 team or they could stumble out of the top 40 - neither would surprise me much."
That’s the range of outcomes Campbell is walking into. And this week in Chicago, the first clues will finally start to surface.
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